Life habits and nutritional value of cucumber fish pond male

The swamp male (Hypomesus olidus) belongs to the order Salmoniformes, the family Smeltidae, and the genus Hypomesus. Commonly known as: cucumber fish. English name: Pond smelt.

The body is slender and slightly flattened on the sides, the head is small and pointed, and the head is longer than the body height. The mouth is large and forward, with villous teeth on the upper and lower jaws and tongue. The maxillary bone does not extend backward to the lower edge of the center of the eye, and the eyes are enlarged. The scales are large and the lateral line is not obvious. The dorsal fin is higher, and its height is greater than the body height; the end of the adipose fin is free and finger-shaped; the pectoral fin is small; the caudal fin is very thin, its height is only equal to the diameter of the eye, and the caudal fin is deeply bifurcated. The back is grass green, slightly yellow; the sides of the body are silvery white; there are small dark spots on the edges of the scales; each fin is gray-black.

Pond smelt is distributed in the lower reaches of Heilongjiang and Tumen Rivers.

Male fish usually live in brackish water areas of river mouths with low water temperature and clear water quality or in the downstream waters of large rivers. They like to swim on the shore. When the water temperature rises, they swim to tributaries. When the water temperature reaches 7-10°C in April and May, they will go upstream from the river mouth to the downstream section of the river, looking for places with gravel on the bottom to lay eggs, and the eggs will adhere to the gravel. The young fish follow the current and enter lakes and rivers to live. Males feed mainly on copepods, cladocerans and crustaceans.

Male fish are small fish, generally only 8-9 cm in size as adults, but they are abundant in number and have a certain output in the place of origin. The male fish has a fragrant cucumber flavor, so the local residents call it cucumber fish. In recent years, aquaculture departments in Liaoning Province and other places have carried out artificial breeding experiments and achieved certain results.

There are the following species similar to the pond male fish:

Japanese male fish (H. japonicus) is produced in the lower reaches of the Tumen River. The difference from the pond male fish is that there are more longitudinal scales on the sides of the body, and the base length of the fat scales is smaller than the eye diameter.

H. nipponensis is found in the lower reaches of the Yalu River.

Smelt (Osmerus mordax) belongs to the genus Smelt and is produced in the lower reaches of the Heilongjiang and Tumen Rivers. The main difference from male fish is that the tongue has large canine teeth; the end of the maxilla exceeds the posterior edge of the pupil.

The living habits and economic significance of smelt and various male fish are similar. They both have a fresh cucumber aroma, so the residents of the place of origin collectively call them cucumber fish.

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